BLESSED

July 21, 2015 | By Bro. Kory Cunningham

We love the word blessed. We love telling people to be blessed, have a blessed day, and of course if someone sneezes, wait for it, “God bless you.” We count our blessings, name them one by one, and ask God to bless these United States of America. We are obsessed with being blessed and giving blessings, but is their a higher purpose for our blessings?

To put it in a simple question, “Why does God bless?”

In Genesis 12:1-4 God reveals Himself to a man named Abram and says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

In this text God calls Abram to leave everything behind in order to follow Him into a land he doesn’t know anything about. But along with this calling to leave comes a promise to bless. God promises to make Abram into a great nation, bless him, and make his name great! Here we have the God of the universe promises to bless Abram beyond comprehension. But why? Why does God bless Abram?

Notice the two words, “so that”. Those two words show us why God blessed Abram and why God blesses us today. God blessed Abram “so that” he would be a blessing! In other words, God didn’t bless Abram primarily for Abram, instead He blessed Abram for the sake of the nations! God had a plan to bring blessings upon the whole world through Christ, and was going to use Abram to bring that blessing to all people.

So why does God bless His people, or more personally, why does God bless you? He blesses you SO THAT you will be a blessing to others. He blesses you so that you will connect your blessings to His mission to the world. He blesses you so that you will be a blessing for the sake of Christ, so that other people experience His blessings through you.

So instead of merely counting your blessings one by one, start using your blessings to bless others.

(For more content listen to our first sermon of the series “BLESSED” and join us next Sunday as we continue the series.)